If You Want Me
by Edward Carson
Summary: Mrs. Hughes is apprehensive about some "aspects" of marriage that she had not considered when she accepted Mr. Carson. This story explores her internal agonies as she tries to come to terms with the problems of a woman in "late middle age" approaching marriage for the first time. Meanwhile, Mr. Carson is dealing with his own demons in a related matter.
1. Chapter 1: Things Not Considered

**IF YOU WANT ME***

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I in any way profit from the use of, the characters, plot lines, setting, or ideas drawn from _Downton Abbey_ that may be reflected in the following story.

 **Chapter 1**

 **Things Not Considered**

Christmas Eve had been like a fairy tale.

 _I do want to be stuck with you._

 _You are if you think I'm asking you to marry me._

 _Well?_

She'd never been one for such stories, preferring reality. But she'd fallen for this one. There was no mistaking the emotion that rippled in his great dark eyes. He loved her and her life would never be the same again. Her own carefully-constructed emotional barriers had come tumbling down in the wake of his unexpected proposal. She might have hoped for it, given way to the occasional fantasy of it, but had not really believed it possible. Mr. Carson was too set in his ways, too wedded to the _way things were done_ , too old to make a new beginning. That he had tossed aside his many inhibitions and overcome the powerful tide of tradition fairly swept her away. And in that moment she had opened her heart as she had never thought herself capable of doing. So this was what it was like to love and be loved!

But for all that, the magic of the night before Christmas - lingering into the next day and even the day after that - proved to have no more staying power than those fanciful children's tales. She knew realistically that the euphoria conjured by his words - words, feelings, gestures, indeed just the look in his eye - could not be sustained much beyond the moment. Love - _real_ love - might be intense, but it was usually steady and solid, manifested more often in the many small gestures of an ordinary day, than the grand sweep of a rare romantic act. She was prepared for that. Her own practical nature dictated that it must be so. Yet she could not deny that she had anticipated _some_ noticeable alteration in their relationship. In this she was disappointed.

It was alarming, really, how quickly their interaction reverted to ... to what it had always been. On the morning of December 27, he was all business-as-usual, his first words to her an inquiry about the list of rooms she was preparing for the visitors who would be coming for the annual New Year's shoot. He was not one to indulge in the whispering of sweet nothings as they passed in the corridor on their usual rounds, and neither was she, but...was it too much to have expected _something_? He did not ignore her. He was all politeness and pleasantries, but so he always was. She swallowed her dismay and bided her time, hoping for better things in their quiet evening moment after dinner. But that evening he came with a series of questions about the house - their house. Apparently he had been holding off making decisions until they could make them together and now they must be made at once, or so he said. And when at last he was satisfied that the more immediate concerns had been addressed, it was late and he advised retiring, only to recall that he had not checked the front door and needed to do so. She ascended the staircase to the servants' quarters alone.

A conventional formality seemed to envelop them in that always-busy week that fell between Christmas and New Year's. There was, of course, much to be done, there was no denying it. But there never seemed to be a moment for _them_. Hard on the heels of New Year's came the servants' ball, an occasion she hoped might give them an opportunity at least to dance together and they did. And it was a delight to be able to appear publicly in this way, although only after he had danced the requisite rounds with the ladies of the family - Her Ladyship, then the Dowager, then Lady Mary, and even Mrs. Crawley. Somehow it was not necessary for him to squire Lady Edith about the floor... Then they had their turn and she gloried in it. Yes, they'd danced before, but the arms that encompassed her were those not just of the butler but of the man she was to marry. But then he was seeking out Lady Mary again.

"She's feeling her widowhood hard this year," he noted, when next he took Mrs. Hughes in his arms, and she felt his attention was more focused on the young woman across the room than on her.

Perhaps his distraction immediately after Christmas was understandable. The family's activities certainly kept her busy, too. But with the servants' ball behind them, she thought the moment to address their future had arrived and she seized the opportunity of their first sherry evening of the new year to raise the question.

"Did you have any dates in mind for the wedding?" she asked, accepting a glass from him.

"We can't be thinking about that yet," he said easily. "There's the house party to get through. A house party." He sighed. "It won't be a big one, not like that one two years ago, but it'll still take some doing. Did _you_ know that the Edgertons had sold their estate?"

When Anna asked her only the next day if they'd set a date yet, she smiled and waved her off. "Oh, we're much too busy at the moment to be getting down to such details." But it wasn't true. Surely they could make time in their busy work lives to discuss something so important, and yet they - or rather _he_ \- couldn't seem to do so. Anna had smiled and nodded, easily believing that the two senior staff members could not set aside their work to address that personal detail, but Mrs. Hughes fancied she saw a questioning look in Anna's eyes as she turned away. It might well have been only a reflection of her own consternation.

And that is how it began. The easy acceptance of the household, upstairs and down, alleviated any need for ongoing negotiations, with the effect that the critical moment - the question asked and answered - seemed to assume the proportions of a task completed. The subject of their wedding date came up from time to time from others and, occasionally, more indirectly from Mr. Carson - usually in relation to some practical matter regarding the house. But it hadn't become the event of the year, or even an event at all.

Time was Mrs. Hughes's enemy in this. Perhaps having waited so long - even if almost unconsciously - for the proposal itself, she had hoped for more expeditious action in carrying out the promise entailed. But as days turned into weeks without any meaningful expression of interest on Mr. Carson's part, she began to think about this agreement they had made and too much time spent dwelling on a matter so emotionally fraught was seldom a good thing.

It had begun on Christmas Eve and increasingly her mind went back to their conversation that night, an exchange she had thought characterized by such clarity that it was impossible to misconstrue. Perhaps she had been in error there. But, no, surely not _all_ of her senses had betrayed her. The question really was why the overwhelming passion that had so consumed Mr. Carson on that occasion had faded so quickly. Where did it go? _Why_ did it go?

The problem with a question asked was that it almost always needed an answer and Mrs. Hughes was not bereft of the mental faculties necessary to provide one. She believed Mr. Carson had been sincere in his proposal, that he did want to marry. But... _why_? His first impulse had, she recalled, been a business proposal - that they purchase a house and open some kind of lodging establishment from which to derive income. There was nothing romantic about that. At the time she had hoped it was merely a facade on his part. The daft man, unable to voice his feelings for her directly, had to come about it from a more oblique angle. Her imaginings had proven correct when, she having turned him down on that, he made that heart-stopping appeal to her on Christmas Eve.

But...was that preliminary offer the real one? Had he turned to a proposal of marriage out of pity for her after hearing her tale of woe about Becky? They cared for one another, she knew that. They even loved each other, in their way, she supposed. Was he making the gentleman's offer in asking for her hand, extending to her in sympathy what he could never offer from passion? If he'd been as warm and loving after Christmas as he had been that night, she would never have doubted. But he wasn't and she did.

The nature of marriage was understood, in conventional circumstances. But if he wasn't interested in a romantic marriage, then what did that mean for how they would live together? Would they share a room and a bed, or not? Once planted, the seeds of doubt took on a life of their own. So when, in February, he inquired if she would like to set the date - the very question she had tentatively put out to him only to be rebuffed - she put him off. She was acutely aware of the context in which he had raised the question - offhandedly, after they had consulted on a series of household tasks, almost as if this were yet another chore to be addressed. The very ordinariness of his voice chilled her. He didn't seem very interested. She supposed that, having made the obligation, he was going to go through with it.

And then he brought it up again.

" _Mrs. Hughes_ ," he said, rounding on her as he descended from the upper floors.

" _Don't you think you ought to start calling me Elsie?_ " she said, trying to break through that crust of formality in which they seemed embedded. Perhaps if she had from him some sense of personal warmth, her growing uneasiness would vanish.

He looked slightly aghast. " _Not here!_ " he responded, recoiling from the inappropriateness of her remark. " _Not while we're at work!_ "

She sighed. " _Go on, then_."

" _I wish we could settle the date_." He seemed provoked. ******

But his manner had confirmed, rather than dispelled, her disquiet. " _There's no rush_ ," she'd said airily, brushing past him. Although he had said what she wanted him to say, she could no longer trust in the sincerity of his saying it.

She began to look at herself in the mirror in a different way, trying to see how she must look to him, and discovered that she was not a flattering sight. No wonder he was all indifference. She was going to be sixty this year. _Sixty!_ How terribly old. Her face was lined, her skin downy and slack rather than velvety smooth and taut as in youth. Her hair was greying. She might have been pretty in her day, but that day was long past. And her body. Well. It was an unpleasant combination of angularity and flesh, none of it in the right places. There was no remedying any of it.

The more she looked at herself - and doing so quickly became a nightly ritual - the more she understood his distance and detachment. He couldn't possibly want her. Not as a husband wanted a bride in the springtime of her life.

Could he?

And doubt, fueled by anxiety and not-knowing, twisted her mind in yet another direction. Surely, ... he wouldn't. She was not attractive. If he harboured some illusions, made possible by layers of clothing that concealed time's work, then it would all become plain enough when... Oh, good lord! Marriage would mean no more secrets. No more concealments. And it would be too late when he found out. They would be tied together by the binding legal compact from which, she was certain, neither would retreat, whether or not they physically sealed the bargain.

Uncertainty stirred by the dimming of the romantic impulse that she thought had existed on Christmas Eve grew into a critical assessment of his motives. The too-convincing options of pragmatic interest or pity made short work of the novel - and unlikely - prospect of true love. And however contradictory, she moved from the painful apprehension that he _would not_ be attracted to her to the equally distressing possibility that, in his ignorance, he _would_. How would he react to the reality? Would he reject her? Or, worse, would he go through the motions because it was the honourable thing to do? She did not want to appear ridiculous before him. But she did not think she could bear it if he were polite.

Perhaps, though, there was still another possibility. Perhaps he did not seek _that kind_ of marriage at all. Vulgar was not a word that could ever be applied to Mr. Carson. Perhaps he himself would shy away from that aspect of marriage as inherently beneath his dignity, rendering her concerns unnecessary.

And now her mind would not be quiet until she knew what it was he expected of her.

 **The More Difficult Part**

It was a shock to find out that he'd gotten it all wrong. He'd been convinced that asking her was the hard part. Had he not agonized over it for months? Lain awake well into many nights last autumn wondering how to put it to her? Fretted over what words to use? And then tossed and turned in trepidation at the prospect of being turned down? The fear of having his heart broken again and then having to continue to live and work beside her as though nothing had happened had given him pause. He had known that this time he would not be able to distance himself from the hurt by going home.

Once she'd said yes - as she had done so satisfactorily - it should have been simply a matter of getting organized. A wedding - especially of two people at their social level - would be no trouble at all. Either one of them could manage the particulars in their sleep. Or so he had been convinced. And the euphoria of Christmas Eve, and then Christmas day, and even Boxing Day had seemed to support his conviction.

His nerves had settled completely as they'd broken the news and found their families, upstairs and down, receptive and delighted. And at first it had seemed like smooth sailing. He'd slept better the week after Christmas than he had in months, no doubt relieved by the lifting of that great weight of uncertainty from his shoulders. All they needed now was a clear stretch of time to make their arrangements and then they would be married, possibly by Easter, early June by the latest. The prospect thrilled him. So he gave his attention to the seasonal distractions of the New Year's Eve celebrations, the shooting party, and then the servants' ball with the usual single-mindedness he had always applied to such tasks, putting off in the moment Mrs. Hughes's passing remarks about dates. First they would take care of the family's business and then, as the mid-winter stillness set in, they would concentrate on themselves.

It was the end of January by the time that was the case and by then something had changed unexpectedly and inexplicably. He'd started losing sleep again. At first it was just a restlessness after he got into bed every night, causing him to shift and turn and then punch his pillow in agitation. And lie awake as precious hours ticked by depriving him of the sleep he needed to restore himself for the always demanding day ahead.

In such moments his mind turned increasingly to Mrs. Hughes and in ways he had not anticipated. _Elsie_ Hughes. His fiancée. The woman who had consented to be his wife. The woman with whom he would _finally_... And that was when he realized that the emotional agonies that had gripped him before Christmas were but pale shadows compared to the demons of his current state. Hitherto it had been apprehension that had burdened him. Now it was anticipation, an anticipation he had not known in decades and that he had largely forgotten. No, never forgotten. Exercised an iron will of self-discipline to suppress. He had not expected these impulses to return in such force. He wasn't a young man any more, after all. He was both consumed with and revolted by his susceptibility to such unbridled - well, he could not think of another word for it - appetites.

The old remedies had feeble results or were impractical. He could not be dousing himself in cold water all day. Or night. There were only so many times in a day that he could step coatless into the brisk wind of a Yorkshire winter without raising questions about his sanity. Work that had absorbed him for decades could no longer hold his interest. He discovered, quite by accident, that he could get through many of his daily tasks with only a fraction of the attention he had always devoted to them with his mind, and his body, determined to be elsewhere. Meals with her at his side were increasingly difficult. With the others apprised of their understanding it was only natural for them to be somewhat warmer toward each other, but this only compounded his problem.

But night was the worst of all. She might not be before him in the flesh, but an imaginative capacity hitherto unknown to him emerged to torment him with visions of holding her in his arms, undressing together, slipping between crisp sheets with her, and...

The only antidote for this vulgar absorption was marriage, the sooner the better. Optimistically he hoped that something that was threatening to become all-consuming the longer it went unrequited might be converted into a more manageable form when indulged now and then.

He did not know how it was with women. Did they have feelings like this? Nice women, that is. He knew there were other kinds of women about and that they were to be avoided for all sorts of reasons. But how would Mrs. Hughes feel about... _this_? He couldn't even articulate intimacy in his mind, although his body seemed to have no difficulty expressing it. It did not occur to him that there might be a celibate option. In his mind, marriage was inherently, if not exclusively, carnal. His concern was how to engage in the natural process without giving way to animal-like impulses. It disgusted him to think that he might be so inclined, and that possibility frightened him just a little. Was this really what he was like?

He could not know the answer to that until he confronted the reality of it. And by then it would be too late. They would be married. And there would be no way back.

 ***A/N1.** I've had this sitting in a desk drawer for a while. A stimulating exchange with _Mistress dickens_ encouraged me to haul it out. It's the same scenario as I covered in _Getting Married_ , Chapter 1, and _Disagreements,_ Chapter 4, from yet another angle, this one favouring Mrs. Hughes's perspective.

 ****A/N2.** The italicized portion here is taken _verbatim_ from _Downton Abbey_ , Season 6, Episode 1.


	2. Chapter 2: Words and Actions

**IF YOU WANT ME**

 **DISCLAIMER:** I do not own, nor do I in any way profit from the use of, the characters, settings, suggested plot lines, or ideas drawn from _Downton Abbey_.

 **Chapter 2 Words and Actions**

 **She Didn't Know**

It wasn't Mrs. Hughes's intention to involve anyone else. She had always dealt with her own problems, relied on her own ingenuity. In this case, however, the matter seemed beyond resolution. She stewed over it, agonizing over how she might approach Mr. Carson in order to discern his expectations, and came always to the same conclusion - that she could not possibly do it. And yet she couldn't put him off forever.

And then Mrs. Patmore inadvertently intervened, concerned by what were apparently visible signs of Mrs. Hughes's inner turmoil.

She felt foolish explaining it. " _You'll say I'm being stupid_ ," she said, as they settled in her room.

" _Maybe you are_ ," Mrs. Patmore responded, in that frank way she had.

Despite this discouraging beginning, Mrs. Hughes told her anyway. The cook did not say much to alleviate Mrs. Hughes's anxiety. Indeed, her comments about "keeping the lights off"and other such pearls of wisdom were not at all helpful. But as the conversation unfolded, Mrs. Hughes began to see beyond Mrs. Patmore's utility as a confidant to her potential as a conduit. In any other circumstances, the housekeeper would have scorned the concept of a go-between. But these were exceptional circumstances. And Mrs. Patmore, though reluctant, agreed to attempt to divine Mr. Carson's marital expectations.

Waiting for Mrs. Patmore's report was tortuous. It was reminiscent of those weeks of heart-in-mouth trepidation that she had endured during her cancer scare. Mrs. Patmore's first failed attempt nearly undid Mrs. Hughes. But then the cook got to it and returned with unambiguous results.

"He loves you," Mrs. Patmore said simply, in response to Mrs. Hughes's agitated question. "And he wants a full marriage," she added, and then sighed. "Put it almost poetically, he did. He said he wanted for you ' _to live as closely as two people can in the time remaining_ ' to you." There was a far-away look in the cook's eyes as she spoke.

Mrs. Patmore might linger over poetry, but Mrs. Hughes had no time for it. The words had a concrete meaning for her that did nothing, she realized, to dispel the state she was in. This fraught venture had only resolved part of the problem. So now she knew what Mr. Carson wanted and that brought her back to the issue that had stirred her anxiety in the first place. So he desired her, but that desire existed in the abstract. How would he react when he actually saw her? Would he still want her then? Mrs. Patmore's advice was of no help there. Neither, really, were Mr. Carson's words.

But what _would_ help? Words couldn't solve this quandary. Only the reality of experience could. And that left Mrs. Hughes in a painful state of limbo. Experience would come too late for them. Was there any way out of this? She didn't know.

 **No Equivocation**

It was imperative that they set the date and get on with it. Then, perhaps only then, could he find peace. He knew that there would be problems of one sort or another _in_ marriage. But he had not been prepared for problems in _love_.

It began to occur to him, as he took up the issue with Mrs. Hughes and found her evasive, that she was putting him off. He tried to put it to her as benignly as he could, lest she sense the primal energy that was consuming him. "I wish we could set the date," he said. But she swept this aside with an airy declaration that, "There's no rush." She would not have said this if she knew the same kind of torment he endured.

That odd conversation with Mrs. Patmore, wherein she went on about the terms of marriage and then downed a glass of sherry like a sailor would a tot of rum, hinted that perhaps there was something else. It could only be a question of whether or not they married. And so when he met up with the cook again, he asked her straight out. " _Has Mrs. Hughes changed her mind?_ " He dreaded the answer. His query elicited, however, the strangest of responses. No, Mrs. Hughes was not concerned with whether or not they should marry, but rather with the nature of the marriage they would have.

Bizarrely, it turned out that he and Mrs. Hughes were absorbed with the same thing, though in different ways, and it was driving them in different directions and to different solutions. He would have marriage as quickly as possible in order to quell his distracting physical hunger. She would have only the framework of marriage without a physical relationship at all. Or this is what he understood from Mrs. Patmore, at any rate.

His reply was immediate. He would not equivocate. For him the physical side of things was essential. Without it they would be as they were now, only in new quarters. He could not tolerate that, not within this new conception of their relationship. He would call it off rather than live in a sham of a marriage. It would be difficult to go on, but restoring control over his rampant desire might keep him busy for a while.

Now it was up to her and he wouldn't make it easy for her. She would have to make her mind up herself.

 **If You're Sure**

She fretted about Mr. Carson's terms and how she would respond to them all afternoon, all the while despising herself for fretting, for this was not like her at all. She was decisive, and yet in this she could not make a decision. She reviled subterfuge and embraced straightforwardness, and in this she had employed an intermediary, with unsatisfactory results. What now?

An unexpected development that evening unlocked the door to potential resolution. Sergeant Willis appeared to tell Anna and Mr. Bates that their long nightmare was over. There was a confession in the matter of Lord Gillingham's valet and it had been verified. They were free.

Joy abounded throughout the Abbey. Everyone was caught up in Mr. Carson, who had been sullen and distant all day, was affected. And Mrs. Hughes herself was touched in a way that profoundly shifted her perspective.

Anna and Mr. Bates had known the truth all along, of course. But to be vindicated in law and in the public mind ...what sweet relief! The impact of the lifting of this burden was evident in the exultation in their faces and in the way they wound their arms about each other. The truth was out and they were free. And though she was hardly aware of when it happened, Mrs. Hughes suddenly found the swirling tempest of her own uncertainties clearing in the glow of their grateful countenances.

She had wanted to know Mr. Carson's expectations and now she did. She could reject his terms, and there would be no marriage. Or she could accept them without question and go ahead with it, risking the happiness of both of them in his potential dissatisfaction and her humiliation in rejection. Neither option was satisfactory.

Because it wasn't that simple. There was another side to consider: hers. What did _she_ want? Her absorption in his reaction to her body had obscured an appreciation for her own needs. To answer this question she had to go back to Christmas Eve and to consider why it was she had accepted him in the first place. And when she thought about it, she knew why. She had accepted him because she loved him and because she'd seen in his eyes and felt in the atmosphere that enveloped them in that magical moment his unqualified love for her in an undeniably romantic sense. She had said yes to the romance of Charles Carson and Elsie Hughes. So she did want a full marriage, after all.

But they would have this full marriage - the union they both wanted - only if he accepted her physically. That was the sticking point. And only by confronting the issue could she - they - resolve it. It was not possible to do so in the flesh. Before marriage was out of the question and after marriage would be too late. She must put it to him in words, however inadequate they might be.

The spectacle of the relief that had swept over Anna and Mr. Bates at Sergeant Willis's announcement gave her courage. The revelation of the truth - admittedly something they already knew to be so - had released them. But the lesson was there nonetheless. Whatever happened, it was better to operate in truth, than to suffer in ignorance. Mrs. Hughes realized that her story might not have a such a happy ending. When apprised of the physical shortcomings of a woman in late middle age, Mr. Carson might recoil from her. She might lose him. But better to do so now than to endure an unhappy marriage, riddled with disappointment. She loved him too much to live with his rejection in an unfulfilled marriage.

The opportunity to test her new-found courage came almost immediately in the unlikely form of Daisy, whose transgression at the auction at Mallerton that afternoon created the occasion for a quiet moment in the butler's pantry. Reprimanded and then restored, Daisy fled, leaving Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson alone with their own unfinished business.

Clearly he expected her response to his conversation with Mrs. Patmore to be conveyed through that same medium. Or perhaps he simply did not want to discuss the issue at all. In any case, he made to leave.

" _Well, shall we rejoin the others?_ "

She stopped him. There was no more appropriate moment. And though she wavered, she also knew a comforting sense of calm. Yes, it was always better to deal with a troubling matter directly. And yet she hedged, making almost polite conversation about his exchange with Mrs. Patmore, trying to find the right words to say what she needed to say. It was what he said next that finally crystallized them for her.

" _Right. Well, if you've had second thoughts, I think we should let the staff know in the morning. I won't make a grand announcement. We'll just tell one or two people and let it come out naturally. There'll be a bit of a nine days' wonder, of course. But we'll get over it."_

It wasn't even the hurt in his voice that did it, but rather that he was calling off their marriage before they'd even spoken of the problem that was dividing them. And now that she'd found the courage to speak to him directly, she was determined to have her say. She might well lose him because of it, but it would be with the truth laid out fully before them.

" _You misunderstand me_ ," she said.

He stopped and turned uncertainly toward her.

" _I was afraid I'd be a disappointment to you. That I couldn't hope to please you as I am now_ ," she said. It was a stark admission of the physical impact of age. It had taken all the courage she had to say it, but it was for him to decide now. And whichever way he chose, the agony of not-knowing would be over. She took a deep breath. " _But if you're sure..._."

And she waited.

 **Never So Sure of Anything**

" _But if you're sure..._."

He _had_ been sullen and distant all day. He had led a celibate life and not been unhappy. But the promise of marriage had unleashed something in him, something wonderful and exhilarating and inexorable - and he did not _want_ to try to corral it again. No, he did _not_ want to talk to her about this. If she would reject him, then let her do it through Mrs. Patmore.

When she began to speak, he went on the defensive, attempting to control his raging feelings by taking control of the conversation. He would lay out how they would announce the news of their changed intentions even before she had made her change of heart explicit to him, already administering the remedy before he'd gotten the diagnosis.

And then he heard her confession.

" _I was afraid I'd be disappointment to you. That I couldn't please you as I am now._ "

He was staggered by her words. For many weeks past he had waged the campaign of his life against desire, trying everything he knew to contain the primal force that had made a mockery of his vaunted claims to self-discipline. And she thought she was undesirable?

Later, when he relived these fraught moments, he would consider what he might have done to contribute to her uncertainty and recognize that the aloofness he had affected as a means to contain his passions must have played a major role in convincing her of her undesirability.

In the moment, however, he could only respond to the question put to him in the frankest manner possible.

"I've never been so sure of anything!" he declared, his voice firm and quiet, but only with a tremendous effort.

And then he waited.

 **Exhilaration**

" _Well, then, Mr. Carson, if you want me, you can have me, to quite Oliver Cromwell, 'warts and all._ '"

Her specific words were lost to him. He only absorbed their meaning. She was giving herself to him, agreeing that their union would be complete, that theirs would be a full marriage.

She had doubted her attractiveness, doubted his desire. And even as she reached out to him with these words - whatever they were - he saw uncertainty in her eyes and heard a tremulousness in her voice. She _still_ doubted. He had to make clear to her here and now that her fears had no foundation. No words were equal to that. He must loose the bindings of his ardour and _show_ her how wrong she was. And face, in the same moment, his own apprehensions about the magnitude of his longing. He reached out to her in a trepidation of his own.

But his hands, when he placed them on her shoulders, were gentle. His kiss was deep, full of passion and expressing all the intensity of his feelings, but not devouring. He was sensitive to the nuances of the body beneath his hands and of the mouth under his. And was intensely gratified to feel in them _her_ desire for _him_.

And he knew in that moment a tremendous relief as well as exhilaration. He would find with her a physical satisfaction and pleasure that both indulged his hunger and satiated it, because she was all he wanted. This revelation came to him through physical cues - the lightness with which he held her and the impulse he felt, when they relaxed , to place his hands tenderly on her face and to press his lips gently to her forehead, and then to draw her into the circle of his embrace.

She was all he needed and she wanted him, too.

 **Contentment**

In the firm hands on her shoulders, the searching mouth on hers, the arms wrapped about her so tightly that they were almost one, she found all the answer she needed. In the tension that gripped him, a tension that suggested he was restraining his longing, he conveyed the truth more eloquently than any words ever could. She was swept away with an intensity of feeling she had not known since Christmas Eve.

He loved her and he wanted her in every way. She doubted no more.

 **A/N1.** The italicized portions of the text are drawn _verbatim_ from _Downton Abbey_ , Season 6, Episode 1.

 **A/N2.** I thought this would be a three-part story, but it had a mind of its own and insisted on brevity. So it is complete in two.


End file.
